He then withdrew with the elders and resolved that, before the king’s army could break into Judea and make itself master of the city, they would march out and settle the issue with God’s help.
In context
11and not to allow the people, who had only just drawn breath a little, to become subject to the blasphemous nations. 12All of them did this together; they pleaded with the merciful Lord in tears and fasting, lying face down for three days without stopping. Then Judas encouraged them and ordered them to present themselves. 13He then withdrew with the elders and resolved that, before the king’s army could break into Judea and make itself master of the city, they would march out and settle the issue with God’s help. 14Having placed the whole matter under the guardianship of the Creator of the world, he urged those with him to fight nobly, even to death, for laws, temple, city, homeland, commonwealth; and he pitched camp near Modein. 15He passed to those around him the watchword “God’s victory”; then, taking a chosen band of the finest young men, he struck by night at the royal quarters. In the camp he cut down some two thousand men, and he ran through the lead elephant together with the man in its howdah.
